On another thread a poster wisely wrote that a win at Quins which was well within reach would see us challenging for top 6, a loss would be yet another season of mid/lower table stuff. I agreed with that and I had high hopes that an elusive away win was there for the taking.

Sadly the players didnít seem to agree, the first 20 mins were awful. I mentioned earlier in the season that we seemed to like playing fancy plays but didnít like the hard graft and doing the core basics. Some of the stuff we played in our own 22 was madness, the number of times we passed the ball to the grass was crazy, accuracy when it mattered just went straight out of the window and we hadnít knock on galore

Well done Quins, I thought Care really controllled the tempo and Smith continued to hugely impress for one so young.

Up until now ive been a big fan of AJ and backed his corner howver seeing us 2 tries down and AJ absolutely silent with Faf trying to gee us up was extremely disappointing so am happy for JOC to be our future 10. He did take control

'"Without mentioning any names, one or two of our players didn't have the best games. For Harlequins, Joe Marler, Chris Robshaw and Danny Care all played well and when your senior players play well you can expect to win."'

It's been said for some time we need more 'leaders on the field' when we were down after 15 mins only Faf was trying to gee up everyone else who mainly made stood in silence. Sam James in the second half seemed to get more involved trying to get us all more motivated. I guess we still really miss this side of the game from the likes of Braid and Sam T

As an aside, Marler (like or loath him) is a funny character - when we scored he started joining in the Sale chant!

Back to the drawing board for the lads on Monday.....might start with only one side on Friday turned up who looked up for it from the off and played with desire to win. What do we need to change to get mentally switched on every time we take the pitch?

[quote C3Q]We do seem to have some sort of hang up playing away from home. It's easy from my arm chair but we should perhaps try to starve the home team of possession and territory in the early stages. It would also allow us to settle and find our feet before half time./quote]

My thought too. In fact when Faf was interviewed before the match his opinion was the the game would be tight in the first 20 minutes. Well I guess he wasn't listening to the team brief (which reflected in his own poor performance last night) because I don't think we were lethargic like Dimes says, we tried to play expansive rugby when we should be clever and play it tight and get the home side under pressure.

I don't like the idea of players given leeway for away game prep. that tactic obviously doesn't work when your last away win was at Bristol. I would agree with him that we need a psychologist because I've said this last season, we have a mental block in playing away from home. That's a difficult monkey to get off your back.

Going back to players preparing for away games, would it be fair to say Dimes' time is far too thinly spread at the club?? recent example, Dimes' was prepared to come to a supporters meeting to discuss match-day issues, whilst that's admirable for a D.o.R. I can't see Dai Young or Mark McCall doing the same.

Mrs Trellis of North WalesDimes says we need more psychologists not coaches and the team is given "leeway" in preparing away games.
[www.bbc.co.uk]

Talking of anonymous performances, the BBC report doesn't even acknowledge that Neild came on the pitch in the mass substitution. (More of a lame joke than a reflection on him).

I'm still not sure why Strauss was slung so early, unless it was an admission that the game was gone and to give the bench playing time. The overall impression was that we were tactically picked apart and compounded it with some silly errors - perhaps believing our own hype after last week?

Our first XV looks strong and the bench has some depth but perhaps it is time for a bit of rotation to freshen things up. We might not be suffering from injuries like other teams but a number of core players playing so many minutes must mount up eventually.

Good points; the starting team line-out seems sorted and we do have a hooker who can throw. When we get our act together we can score lots of tries, however it takes 30 - 50 minutes it seems. Our back three keep digging us out of the smelly stuff. Starting 8 was very good and made the hard yards.

Not so good; 6 / 7 look poor today, Ross had a bad match and looked outclassed against a fairly average back row. Yes Curry tackles, but what else does he do? Apart from his try, James struggled. Our 10 was simply ineffective most of the match and completely outshone by an 18 year old. We were so slow off the line and didn't defend deep, basics.

I would think of another 6, maybe Neild? We clearly need another 9 when Faf is having a brain fart.

If Beaumont is injured then that leaves us with three locks in the entire squad, one of whom is (realistically) a blindside, and another who has had concussion issues this season so another knock could spell a long spell on the sidelines.

The team are not prepared for away games. This is the responsibility of the DOR, he needs to accepts this. At this stage I would suggest the recruitment of Dr Steve Peters rather than a top class centre. He is renowned in his field of sports psychology and i would advise Dimes that a read of his book over the next two days may help him understand the Chimp Paradox.

M5 SharkThe team are not prepared for away games. This is the responsibility of the DOR, he needs to accepts this. At this stage I would suggest the recruitment of Dr Steve Peters rather than a top class centre. He is renowned in his field of sports psychology and i would advise Dimes that a read of his book over the next two days may help him understand the Chimp Paradox.

I wonder if the Currys aren't hampered by the new ruck laws, given the response seems to be for there to be very little competition over the ball now. Whereas they burst onto the scene by nabbing 5,6 or 7 turnovers a game.

The biggest disappointment is the comedown from last week. Tarus having one bad half against Marler doesn't undo his good work to date and I suspect if his English was native, he'd have been chirping back against him as Marler worked on Carley. Perhaps a bit too confident after last week as well - certainly it didn't seem as if Ross H had to try for the offload that led to their first try, which was but one of our errors compared to the Gloucester game.

EJ tried using Solomona to defend the 10 channel vs Argentina - we tried it here, and Care had the nous to spot it and then chip against Faf on the wing. A bit of tweaking needed for that one methinks.

Going back to players preparing for away games, would it be fair to say Dimes' time is far too thinly spread at the club?? recent example, Dimes' was prepared to come to a supporters meeting to discuss match-day issues, whilst that's admirable for a D.o.R. I can't see Dai Young or Mark McCall doing the same.[/quote]

Agree entirely.Most if not all Premiership clubs have both a DOR and a CEO or something similar.Agree that it's commendable but why on earth is Diamond the go between the fans and the stadium management ? It can't just be coincidence that we're struggling both on and off the pitch.

M5 SharkThe team are not prepared for away games. This is the responsibility of the DOR, he needs to accepts this. At this stage I would suggest the recruitment of Dr Steve Peters rather than a top class centre. He is renowned in his field of sports psychology and i would advise Dimes that a read of his book over the next two days may help him understand the Chimp Paradox.

Can he play in the 2nd row as well?

Well he could give most of our players a run for their money over 100m. He is 64 now, and ran 11.5 for 100m a few years ago according to Wiki. He is big in Masters Athletics

There was one moment of brilliance from Smith when Curry was left for dead. It should have resulted in a try for Harlequins, but it didn't. The Currys are good tacklers when play is in the modern idiot, to quote Benny Hill - when the player who has the ball looks for someone to run into. They are both very physical and very able tacklers when brute force is the thing. It's much more difficult to tackle someone when one can't read where he is going. I have long hoped that the game would move back to favour players such as Smith, but while there is so much stall placed in retaining ball for twenty or thirty phases the risk takers don't seem to be welcomed in the main.

I turned the coverage off before Dimes was interviewed. Really there is no point in hearing it. I could write his scripts for him - plus Áa change and all that. That said, of course it has to be the same, every recent away game seems to have gone the same way. I wonder how many times lessons have to be learned before they are actually learned.

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